lucas-fine-foods-111210.jpg
Lucas Fine Foods, which opened in Park Slope this May, has shuttered. It offered prepared meals, catering services, salads, sandwiches, and the like. The place is relocating to focus on catering, wholesale, and delivery. A sign on the door also said that the chef there would still host a weekly dinner delivery and monthly tasting menu. (For more info you can contact them.) And yet another sign promised that Ample Hills Creamery, the house-made ice cream Lucas, will open an ice cream parlor on Vanderbilt Avenue next spring. Something to look forward to! GMAP


What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. I’m commenting late on this, but am doing so in the hope that the owner is reading this and can learn from some constructive criticism.

    I wanted to like this place, and wanted it to succeed, but it sadly missed the mark. As bkabak said, it closed too early in the evenings. Busy professionals who have no time to cook but are willing to spend money to buy good prepared foods don’t get home at 6:00 or 7:00. Luscious Foods on Fifth Avenue is open until 9:00 p.m., as is Union Market just down the block from this place, and while that may be later than most people need, staying open until at least 8:00 seems like a minimum requirement for a prepared food business.

    It also opened too late on weekend mornings. I went by soon after they were opened to buy some chocolate croissants one Saturday or Sunday morning, and they weren’t open yet! I don’t think they opened until noon. That was a poor choice. Instead, I had Cafe Regular on Berkeley, Blue Apron on Union, or the Tea Lounge practically next door to choose from.

    Finally — the food really wasn’t that good! That “Southern” potato salad was really just orange mayonnaise with some potatoes in it (yuck!), the salmon was tasteless, and overall there just wasn’t enough of a selection.

    It was a good idea, and I think there’s still room for a good prepared foods store in the North Slope, so I hope this owner (or someone else) can learn from these mistakes.

  2. I hate to be overly blunt about it because the owner was trying to start a small business, but she was clearly in over her head. The place closed too early considering it sold prepared dinners. She opened on the same block as the Co-Op and Union Market and across the street from Blue Apron. She never took credit cards. It just didn’t seem as though the business acumen to open such a place was there. Hopefully the catering business does better.